Read this article to find my view on how we can improve your situation, dear reader, and in doing so improve my situation here in North London. In doing so, I hope to come up with something that will touch on the following important issues in a simple action that all North Londoners can get involved in together.. Safer streets. A living wage, even for the cleaners at football clubs. Opportunities for young people. Care and isolation
I would like to put forward a hypothesis that the simple thing which binds all of these things is community.
A community like the New North London synagogue is in reality too divided to organise together. Before the advent of the motorcar to North London's streets, was it likely that a girl would feel unsafe waiting for her bus home? Unfortuntately for our fragmented car-based community, people are now afraid to live safely outside their own homes, schools, and shops.
Financial apartheid has also fragmented communities such as in Durban, South Africa where life chances depend on whether or not you are on a living wage, not the colour of your skin. The Green Party and others are calling for an end to stratospheric wages that are more than 10 times the lowest wages in an organisation. Enough is enough!
I wish I had the strength to say I would offer North London youth a way out of crime and hopelessness, but if we had stronger community, I could borrow enough money from community banks for long enough to actually back up all my ambitions for creating jobs for all of us.
And with more money back in the community, I hope that those people who are in isolation would find strength from the above and take back their hospitals broken budgets for more nurses. After all, dear reader, they fought for our freedom.
So what can we do about this fragmentation of community? All drive less and walk more, and when we do, don't do it in North London unless you're willing to do your bit for safer streets when someone needs help!